More than 80 per cent of the world's known coal reserves need to stay in the ground to avoid dangerous climate change, according to new research. Thirty per cent of known oil and 50 per cent of gas reserves are unburnable and drilling in the Arctic is out of the question if we're to stay below two degrees, the new research notes.

That vast amounts of fossil fuels must go unused if we're to keep warming in check isn't a new idea. What's novel about today's paper is that it pinpoints how much fuel is unburnable in specific regions of the world, from Canadian tar sands to the oil-rich Middle East.

Religious communities are putting their faith, and their property, behind affordable housing.

David Collet's insight:

This is a super piece from one of my Canadian sources. And I think it is timely in the Malaysian environment.

I know this idea is already active in Malaysia because I frequent two sites that are built in much the same way as mentioned in this article for Muslims located in the Toronto area.

But please note. This is not really an article about religion. It is an article about community sharing and caring. Scaling back on the profit motive of things and scaling up on the quality of life, community motive of things.

There are three of the major religious groups mentioned in this article. Christians, Muslims, and Jews. And all three are in one way or another engaged in making things easier for their particular communities.

And I think a whole series of articles could be written around this particular subject with a theme of a caring, sharing community working together to enhance the quality of life for all members of the community.

Today's environment reminds me a lot of when I was first in the business. You have to adapt, you have to research, you have to be open to challenges. If you are, your career will flourish. But if you fear - watch to world go by.

James Whitbrook: "The Doctor Who Christmas Special is firmly entrenched as a holiday tradition now - but the arrival of a Christmas episode from Alisa Stern's Doctor Puppet is just as exciting, as The Puppet 12th Doctor and Clara land on a Planet that only appears on Christmas Day."

I want to scoop this more because of other considerations than the actual topic.

Too often we race in a direction hoping to solve a problem when we have spent enough time investigating the problem.

Take electricity. I has many ways of being generated. There is no one solution that is suitable to all situations.

In Canada on of the first water powered generators was installed a Niagara Falls and was a tremendous success. So much so that when it aged and needed to be seriously maintained, they opted to build a new one in a new place. No serious affect on the local geography. If fact the park that resulted was and is a serious tourist draw. Few people, if any, were displaced. Few trees cut down. At the time of construction and re-construction the distribution network had no other choice. High wires and land easements. Over the years it has paid for itself with little in the way of environmental impact. But if that were today, the story would be quite different.

Now, in China, the three gorges dam - almost the opposite. Now there are many alternatives to big generation facilities that result in much less environment disturbance, scale much more effectively for the target customers and lead to much less disturbance of local inhabitants.

In Germany, the local utility has committed to eliminating all coal fired generation and replace it with green energy - wind, solar, and yes, even water where it is suitable - in the span of about 10 years. Next will be the other fossil fuel, petroleum.

Maybe moves like this are resulting in the melt down if fuel oil prices.

>" [...] The study, published Monday, Dec. 15, 2014, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that deaths from air pollution could be cut by 70% if electric cars use only renewable-source electricity. But if they use energy from "dirty" sources like coal, they could actually make matters worse and could increase the number of deaths by 80% or more.

“These findings demonstrate the importance of clean electricity, such as from natural gas or renewables, in substantially reducing the negative health impacts of transportation,” said Chris Tessum, co-author on the study and a researcher in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering in the University of Minnesota’s College of Science and Engineering.

The University of Minnesota team estimated how concentrations of two important pollutants — particulate matter and ground-level ozone — change as a result of using various options for powering vehicles. Air pollution is the largest environmental health hazard in the U.S., in total killing more than 100,000 people per year. Air pollution increases rates of heart attack, stroke, and respiratory disease. [...]"<

An estimated 100,000 workers in the country's agriculture industry are under 14. Alejandrina, 12, wanted to be a teacher. But she hasn't been to school for years while traveling with her family to pick crops.

It’s crazy to see how desperate some of these people are to get working and how much they do for such a little reward. These people are working longer and harder than probably all Americans and they are barely surviving. They work for survival. It’s hard for some of these people to stay healthy, especially in the harsh conditions and tight living spaces that these people have to deal with on an everyday basis.

I have only begun to read this long report. But I consider it important enough to forward it. I believe much of what Shell has to say is self serving but I believe we need to read it in order to get a fully rounded idea of what is happening.

A journalist's look at three different systems producing remarkable results.

David Collet's insight:

A good and informative read.

And, I agree. Raised in the Canadian system when there was still rigour in the system, I have to view the Malaysian system (public schools) as being woefully slack. Teachers don't teach, they read from the book. With no attempt to engage their students. Every student is expected to take extra tuition outside of school. This is manageable for the wealthy but a waste of time for those on a limited budget. The tuition centres are pretty much the same as the class room. Read from the book and let the students find their own way.

What purpose do the classrooms serve other than as a babysitter for children who's parents (both) are working.

A motivated child will learn on their own. A disinterested child needs to be motivate. And different children are motivated by different subjects and to different degrees. When I was at school all of the teachers spent significant time motivating their students to excel.

And also, back then, there was almost no incidence of bullying. Kids had better things to do with their time.

The World Bank Group and the Wharton School of Business are co-sponsoring “Ideas for Action,” a competition to mobilize youth across the development community to invent, foster, and inspire innovative solutions to financing development post-2015.

This in part explains why we’re seeing spontaneous protests nationwide, protests that, in their scale, racial diversity, anger and largely nonviolent nature, are unusual if not unique. I was in four cities recently — New York, Washington, Berkeley and Oakland — and there were actions every night in each of them. Meanwhile, workerswalked off the job in 190 cities on Dec. 4.

The root of the anger is inequality, about which statistics are mind-boggling: From 2009 to 2012 (that’s the most recent data), some 95 percent of new income has gone to the top 1 percent; the Walton family (owners of Walmart) have as much wealth as the bottom 42 percent of the country’s people combined; and “income mobility” now describes how the rich get richer while the poor ... actually get poorer.

From what I've seen, seeing young people as a group and coming up with mass decisions for the whole group doesn't seem to work all that well. The real answer is in somehow seeing each of these youth as individuals and facilitate individual providing for. -Lon

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